Open Forum

The Peoria PlayHouse Children's Museum, which opens to the public in June 2015, would like to have the option of issuing timed tickets, in case our visitors exceed capacity (our capacity is very small). Dealing with ticketing and POS systems is new to me, so I'm not even sure I know what questions to ask, but here are a few:

If you are issuing timed tickets, and the museum opens at 9am, do we sell immediate access to capacity?
If yes, when we start issuing tickets for later in the day, how long do we wait for the next round of tickets?
At that point, do we stagger admission? If so, how do we structure this?

Our POS system is Centaman, but I'm not sure whether that matters in terms of structuring the timing of entry.

If anyone has experience with this and has a few minutes to answer questions by phone, even better - please email me directly at rherz-at-peoriaparks.org

Thanks,
Rebecca

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Rebecca Herz
Director, Peoria PlayHouse Children's Museum
Peoria PlayHouse Children's Museum
Peoria IL
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We typically will use timed ticketing for our traveling special exhibitions.  Our timed ticket structure is usually predefined and static.  For example, if we know the exhibit will be open from 10am through 5pm there will be a time slot every 15 minutes from opening until close.  We don't usually regulate what time slots are available based on sales but just make them all available.

That said, we do have a couple of special programs that occur through the year where we know demand might be unpredictable.  In those cases we plan for and build in the ticketing system, the maximum number of time slots we could accommodate.  We may initially only open the first 2 or 3 to the public, but if those sell out quickly, we have the ability to decide to open the additional time slots to our guests.  Basically everything is ready to sell; we just hide from the public time slots we don't want them to purchase until the other time slots fill up.

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Chris Flowers
Director of Ticketing and Constituent Systems
Cincinnati Museum Center
Cincinnati OH
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Original Message:
Sent: 02-18-2015 06:55 PM
From: Rebecca Herz
Subject: Timed ticketing

The Peoria PlayHouse Children's Museum, which opens to the public in June 2015, would like to have the option of issuing timed tickets, in case our visitors exceed capacity (our capacity is very small). Dealing with ticketing and POS systems is new to me, so I'm not even sure I know what questions to ask, but here are a few:

If you are issuing timed tickets, and the museum opens at 9am, do we sell immediate access to capacity?
If yes, when we start issuing tickets for later in the day, how long do we wait for the next round of tickets?
At that point, do we stagger admission? If so, how do we structure this?

Our POS system is Centaman, but I'm not sure whether that matters in terms of structuring the timing of entry.

If anyone has experience with this and has a few minutes to answer questions by phone, even better - please email me directly at rherz-at-peoriaparks.org

Thanks,
Rebecca

-------------------------------------------
Rebecca Herz
Director, Peoria PlayHouse Children's Museum
Peoria PlayHouse Children's Museum
Peoria IL
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